"I have just had a note from Zillah Denyer, about Madeline. She merely mentions that you are no longer there." "I ought to go and see them; but I can't to-day." "Have you been in London all the time?" "Yes.--I have gone back to my husband." It was spoken in a matter-of-fact tone (obviously assumed) which was very incongruous with the feeling it excited in Cecily. She could not hear the announcement without an astonished look. "Of your own free will?" she asked, in a diffident voice. "Oh yes. That is to say, he persuaded me." Their eyes met, and Cecily had an impulse of distrust, more decided than she had ever felt. She could not find anything to say, and by keeping silence she hoped the interview might be shortened. "You are disposed to feel contempt for me," Mrs. Travis added, after a few moments. "No one can judge another in such things. It is your own affair, Mrs. Travis." "Yes, but you despise me for my weakness, naturally you do. Had you no suspicion that it would end again in this way?" "I simply believed what you told me." "That nothing would induce me to return to him. That is how women talk, you know. We are all very much the same." Again Cecily kept silence. Mrs. Travis, observing her, saw an offended look rise to her face. "I mean, we are few of us, us women, strong enough to hold out against natural and social laws. We feel indignant, we suffer more than men can imagine, but we have to yield. But it is true that most women are wise enough not to act in my way. You are quite right to despise me." "Why do you repeat that? It is possible you are acting quite rightly. How should I be able to judge?" "I am not acting rightly," said the other, with bitterness. "Two courses are open to a woman in my position. Either she must suffer in silence, care nothing for the world's talk, take it for granted that, at any cost, she remains under her husband's roof; or she must leave him once and for ever, and regard herself as a free woman. The first is the ordinary choice; most women are forced into it by circumstances; very few have courage and strength for the second. But to do first one thing, then the other, to be now weak and now strong, to yield to the world one day and defy it the next, and then to yield again,--that is base. Such a woman is a traitor to her sex." Cecily did not lift her eyes. She heard the speaker's voice tremble, and could not bear to look at her face. Her heart was sinking, though she knew not exactly what oppressed her. There was a long silence; then Cecily spoke. "If your husband persuaded you to return, it must have been that you still have affection for him." "The feeling is not worthy of that name." "That is for yourself to determine. Why should we talk of it?" Looking up, Cecily found the other's eyes again fixed on her. It was as though this strange gaze were meant to be a reply.